Oman made a strategic decision a dealve into their sailing roots and created Oman Sail. From 2008, youth sailing has been heavily invested in, teaching hundreds of youth and then headlining many professional programs.
The fruits of these efforts are paying off, and two of Oman’s 49er teams are now poised to qualify for their first Olympic games. At the 2020 Worlds Chris Museler sat down with the team of Ahmed Al Hasan & Adbul Al Mashari to discuss their aims in the 49er class. They were joined by Jim Colley and Shaun Conner of Australia.
Oman has two teams that will compete at the 2020 Asian Championship and Olympic qualifier where the top team will earn a berth for their nation in Tokyo. There is plenty of competition from other nations – China, India, Thailand, Hong Kong, South Korea and Oman will all be chasing the same spot, but Oman was the top of the bunch in 2016, though they couldn’t beat Japan to qualify that time.
These young teams talk about campaigning from completely different backgrounds. All of these sailors coach youth sailors to fund their sailing, though the national outlooks couldn’t be more different. The Omani’s are heros of the countries, who’s role is primarily to inspire the next generation. The Australians are mainly ignored by their national conversation and are grinding toward their dreams of sailing.
Follow their journey at the 2020 Asian Championship in March 2020.
The qualification for the Olympic games beaks down as 1 spot for the host nation, Japan, 12 spot for countries at large during the 2018 and 2019 Worlds, which have already been won, and then 1 spot for each of the six continents. Follow along with all the qualified nations and named representatives on our Tokyo Olympic page.
